If I was back in the time, when I came in, I would be thinking and doing the same thing a lot of people I’ve come in contact with. People, who struggle with the concept of a spiritual awakening. The lack of a higher power.
This all came to mind, when listening to someone, who was obviously still their own higher power. It was simple enough to pick up on, when I heard what they said today.
Of course, just like today, back then I was in a miserable place with myself. Feeling apart from the people in the rooms of this program and still trying to figure things out for myself. My first thought, when I heard them, was the Second Step. That’s what I found out I was lacking back then. I had surrendered to the First Step and that was as far as I had gotten. Ditto for this person, who was obviously suffering with their thinking.
In listening to others over the years, who described their struggles with coming to believe in a power greater than themselves, and reading the stories of so many others in the book from the Grapevine, Spiritual Awakenings, I’ve come to realize this is nothing new. But what is clear is that the first step in the solution is to get an open mind. Not something I had back then.
One of the things, which helped me to get an open mind, was the pain of my experiences in lacking this higher power. The other was the group itself. I could see the examples of those, who lived by the concepts of this program. And, because they gave me so much hope, at first I held them as my higher power. It was enough at the start to keep me away from a drink of alcohol.
But, as time went on, it became clear that more was needed, if I was going to stay sober. It became obvious that the solution for me was in the Twelve Steps. But how to get there?
That’s where the pain became an instrument in prying my mind open enough to get a start. After all pain had brought me down to my knees, when it came to alcohol. Now pain was going to become a blessing in my life once more. That’s one thing I came to learn in this program. The value of pain in my life. That pain could be the forerunner of my spiritual awakenings.
Thank God for sponsors. My sponsor saw what I was going through and kept insisting that I read the BB. Not only to read it, but to study it. So, as I read and identified, my mind began to take a turn and for the first time in my life it began to open up to the possibilities described in the book. The door opened to the Second Step and I stepped into a new way of life. Hope turned into faith.
Anyway, this is what I was thinking about this afternoon and evening. As a friend of mine always says, I got out of the driver seat and moved to the back of the bus. Well, most of the time. Sometimes I still find myself back in the driver’s seat and then comes the pain.